The modeling and analysis of rotten kids

Becker's “Rotten Kid Theorem” has recently been examined in the context of public good contributions. We clarify several misconceptions that appear in the literature and establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of welfare maximizing sequential equilibria. Our results are presented without the imposition of convexity, differentiability, or even continuity constraints on the preferences of decision-makers.The helpful comments of an anonymous referee and editor are gratefully acknowledged.     

Children’s conceptualisation(s) of their well-being

This paper describes the process and some findings of a collaborative project between the New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People and researchers at the Social Justice and Social Change Research Centre, at the University of Western Sydney. The project was designed to inform the Commission in implementing its legislative mandate to develop a set of well-being indicators to monitor children's well-being over time. Placing children centrally as research participants was fundamental to the methodological approach of the project in which children's understandings of what contributes to their well-being were explored through qualitative methods. We discuss the epistemological and methodological approaches used in the project, in the context of other, earlier research towards the development of children's well-being indicators. Some of the early findings from the collaborative project are outlined and an example given of the way in which knowledge produced by a research approach which places children centrally, differs from and is similar to knowledge produced by more traditional child social indicator research. The paper ends with a discussion of some of the implications and challenges posed by reflecting on the research process and early findings from the research.     

Reconceptualizing Women's Paid Informal Work: Some Lessons from Lower‐Income Urban Neighbourhoods

This article evaluates critically whether women's paid informal work is low‐paid market‐like work conducted for the purpose of economic gain. Drawing upon interviews with 400 households in UK lower‐income urban neighbourhoods, we show that only a small segment of the paid informal work conducted by women is of this character. The vast bulk is undertaken for and by friends, relative and neighbours under non‐market relations for reasons associated with redistribution and sociality. Given this finding, we thus conclude that a reconsideration is required of whether eradication alone is always the appropriate policy response.     

CHARACTERIZATIONS OF SHIFT-INVARIANT DISTRIBUTIONS BASED ON SUMMATION MODULO ONE

Let X₁Y_1,…, Y_n be independent random variables. We characterize the distributions of X and Y_j satisfying the equation {X+Y₁++Y_n}=_dX, where {Z} denotes the fractional part of a random variable Z. In the case of full generality, either X is uniformly distributed on [0,1), or Y_j has.a shifted lattice distribution and X is shift-invariant. We also give a characterization of shift-invariant distributions. Finally, we consider some special cases of this equation.     

Book reviews

Jan Lundberg is founder of the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium and president of the Fossil Fuels Policy Action Institute. He formerly published theLundberg Letter, an oil industry newsletter based in Los Angeles.     

Parents' Coresidence With Adult Children: Can Immigration Explain Racial and Ethnic Variation?

There is considerable racial and ethnic variation in the prevalence of intergenerational coresidence in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Surveys, we demonstrate that much of this is attributable to recent immigration and the relative economic position of immigrant parents. Multinomial logistic regression results reveal that recent immigrant parents, particularly Asian and Central and South American immigrant parents, are more likely to live in households in which their adult children provide most of the household income. The likelihood of living in this “dependent” role decreases with duration of residence in the United States. The likelihood of living in an intergenerational household in which the parent provides the majority of the household income is not as tied to nativity.     

Old Ideas Meet New Technologies: Will Digitalisation Save Public Service Broadcasting (Ideals) from Commercial Death?

Digitalisation seems to have reached enough momentum to dominate discussions regarding the state and future of public service broadcasting (PSB) in recent years. Starting from a background overview of the main developments in PSB (policy, structure and content) since its inception, the article analyses current debates regarding the future of PSB. The most heard stakeholders, the dominant positions, discourses and arguments regarding the position of PSB in the 'new' digital, interactive, personalised media future are identified. Next, and crucially, this article intends to lay bare the technological determinism implicit in much of this debate and the implications for the way in which the discussion is being held. Taking instead a social constructivist point of view, the article concludes with an analysis of the way in which the main goals of access, universality and quality can be reinterpreted in the light PSB's position in a changing society.